


Wasted

by cryogirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Bonding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28858779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryogirl/pseuds/cryogirl
Summary: Thirteen years on his own, thirteen years as padawan, thirteen years as Bonded One; that’s what Obi-Wan gets. He doesn’t think that he’ll make it another thirteen years alone.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	Wasted

They all warned him. Over and over, they repeated their cautions and told him to choose differently. Told him that this would happen, how it was bound to happen, and now that it is really here– he can sense their eyes on him wherever he goes, waiting for his inevitable breakdown and thus, their triumph. Because they were right, they know they were and now he does too, doesn’t he?

_ Don’t bond with him. _

_ A bond severed by death leaves the surviving part behind weak and helpless. _

_ He’s too old, Knight. By the time you’re fifty, you’ll be alone and it will hurt far more than it does now. _

_ Die, you will, too. _

And here he is, not even forty, sitting on the edge of their bed and crying for the first time in his life as far as he can recall. Not because Qui has left him and joined the Force. No, tears are far too small and worldly to express his terror about that.

He’s crying because he was a fool, and because he dreads the judgement of the other members of the Order. 

_ What a waste. _

Years of training, all those resources poured into him, all squandered decades before it was time. Decades in which he could have serviced a cause, should have been useful to the sake of peace in the Republic. And for what? they ask. For love, a silly attachment to an old man. Bonds are there to strengthen both partners. When the Force is willing, a bond between two Jedi can wing their powers to incredible heights, to abilities a lone Jedi can only dream of. That is the purpose of a bond.

And Obi-Wan knows that their bond was a strong one, stronger than anything he could’ve achieved with another partner. The fact that he loved Qui-Gon was just the bloom of an already mighty tree.

Three and a half decades, that’s what separated him and his Bonded One. Qui-Gon had been nearly sixty when they held their ceremony, but he’d looked so strong and steady, had been ever since Obi-Wan could remember, that all thoughts of old age and natural death had fled his mind. If anything, he’d feared to lose him to a ship wreck or a faulty energy shield, or even at the hands of another warrior. 

Sobs ripple through him, salty liquid runs into his beard and trickles down further, staining his impeccable tunics. He feels small and weak, because he is. Human kind is so weak. Why would Master Yoda get half a millennium, but his Qui-Gon has been granted merely 74 years? It was over so fast at the end, and so pathetically trivial. A sickness of his mind, the healers said, an imbalance in his body that even the Force couldn’t heal. Qui-Gon withered quickly after that, lines deepening, cheeks hollowing, hands becoming thin and knotted. Obi-Wan didn’t care. The physical side of their bond, at least the passionate part, went silent a few years after their ceremony, and although he was still a young man at that point, it didn’t matter to him. What mattered were shared conversations; long, friendly touches; and the deep thrumming and gleaming of the Force that followed them wherever they went together.

Thirteen years on his own, thirteen years as padawan, thirteen years as Bonded One; that’s what Obi-Wan gets. He doesn’t think that he’ll make it another thirteen years alone.

_ What a waste. _

How can it be a waste though, he wonders faintly, when every minute of it was worth it? Every particle of Living Force they shared was more precious than a whole galaxy of empty energy. And for Qui-Gon? Qui-Gon got to live to the end with an intact bond. He left the dimension they existed in with the love and light of his partner cursing through him, and when he cut the connection off, it only died on Obi- Wan's side. He took his part with him, and let it become one with the Force around him, making it stronger and better. 

Obi-Wan rolls his shoulders, shrugs the shame off like a smudge of dust and will the tears out of his face. No, he doesn’t need to cry, or to hide. 

He may be broken; but he didn’t waste a single part of him on the wrong thing.


End file.
